Social relevance boosts context processing in Williams syndrome.

The aim of the present study was to determine whether individuals with Williams syndrome (WS) are able to recognize facial expressions of emotion and objects missing on the basis of contextual cues. Sixteen individuals with WS were compared to typically developing individuals matched on chronological and mental age. WS group performed significantly lower than both control groups in object recognition.

Attention to low- and high-spatial frequencies in categorizing facial identities, emotions and gender in children with autism.

This study was aimed at investigating face categorization strategies in children with autistic spectrum disorders (ASD). Performance of 17 children with ASD was compared to that of 17 control children in a face-matching task, including hybrid faces (composed of two overlapping faces of different spatial bandwidths) and either low- or high-pass filtered faces. Participants were asked to match faces on the basis of identity, emotion or gender.